This Blog will discuss various anecdotal topics about the Post "Peak Everything" world from my daily life in which I am clearly "Holier Than Thou". Note that even the holierthanthou blog name peaked before this blog started...

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Today I had the "pleasure" of crossing 101 4 times on my bike between San Mateo and Santa Clara. 3rd Ave, Whipple, Maple, and Steven's Creek Trail. Whipple deserves a separate post so I'll start with the other three. Feel free to add in the comments and I'll integrate them.

Let's start with 3rd Avenue. 3rd has a separated bike path that goes down the middle of the overpass, a similar sensation to the bike path on the Dumbarton Bridge. You are protected while ON the overpass, which is good. The problem is that you have to get onto and off of the overpass itself.

The approach to the bike path is actually on 4th St (3rd is one way the other direction) and if you are riding on the right side of the road, you must cross three lanes of traffic, one of which could be going either way. A block back at the intersection of Humboldt and 4th, I decided to cross to the left side of 4th. There is a white line that creates a "chunk of separated space" there - it's not a bike lane, who knows what it is. I guess it's where San Mateo hopes you will ride to approach the bike path. I ended up jumping onto the sidewalk, with more experience I might take the "chunk of separated space". You are allowed to ride on the left side of the road on one way streets, but this thing is just sort of ugly.

Once you get on, you are onto the "onramp" of the path, there is an "offramp" going the other direction towards 3rd. Both "ramps" are bidirectional, I actually saw a cyclist approaching the main pathway from 3rd. I assume they rode on the sidewalk down 3rd since 3rd is one way the other direction.

The path ends in the middle of the street, at an intersection. You are in the middle of traffic going either direction around you. My thinking is that the official position is that at this point you are supposed to walk your bike to the appropriate side of 3rd Ave based on where you are headed, when you get a crosswalk signal to cross 3rd from the middle. This is what a pedestrian would do, and it's what the cyclist in front of me did, I followed. I then got back into regular traffic on "J Hart Clinton" which was no fun quite frankly, then left into Ryder Court Park to get on the bike path to join my friends. Looking at Google Maps, it appears I made a mistake. The left into Ryder Court cannot be made by cars, as such there is no real provision to make a left hand turn there (turn pockets) but there is a light. Turns out the pro move is to go South on Norwalk after exiting the bike path, then make (a somewhat difficult) left onto a bike path, which then ends in the crosswalk into Ryder Park.

From the reverse direction, the best approach to the 3rd St Path is from Norwalk, in the left turn pocket (taking the lane) and then turning left directly into the bike path instead of the travel lane (or right from Norwalk the other way, and god help you if you are on J Hart Clinton).

Right then. Next - Maple. Maple is a piece of cake relatively speaking. From the Peninsula side, you turn right from Veterans NB or left from Veterans SB, or if you are lucky you are on Maple already, perhaps coming from Caltrain via Winslow/Middlefield. There is very little auto traffic on Maple, and no on/offramps. Coming from the other direction you are coming from either the Marina or Blomquist Road, both low traffic areas. This sort of makes Maple an "overpass to nowhere", I used it today in fact to bypass the nearby "Bridge to Nowhere" which is in a field that is currently muddy.

Next - Steven's Creek Trail.

Self Explanatory. The only rub is knowing where the access point is. On the Bay Side, take Pear SB from Shoreline, then right onto Inigo, left onto La Avenida, which dead ends into the trail entrance. The closest entrance on the Peninsula side is Moffett. This is a pretty nice trail, observe reasonable speed as there are lots of pedestrians.

4 comments:

Your observations on the eastbound (NE bound really) approach to the 3rd ave bridge are spot on (this is one reason I have stopped taking that route when going to work from SM station). When I did it I would actually ride east on Tilton to a right on Humboldt, then take a left onto the 3rd St sidewalk right at the beginning of the path. Once across I usually continue straight in the left lane with traffic (very suck) Church (left turn lane) and instead of riding through the gate I (illegally) ride the sidewalk which turns into a bike path behind the big wall. From there it's pretty obvious.

On the westbound approach I hop onto J. Hart Clinton at Ryder Court Park and then cross over to the left turn lane at Norfolk when traffic is clear. The light time is such that I hang in the left turn lane until the thru traffic gets the green (after the on-coming green arrow goes out). While this seems a bit sketchy it's not so bad.

Due to what you experienced and my own findings I have come to the conclusion that Monte Diablo (while glass strewn) is much the better ticket. From the train station you only go one extra block north and run right into it. I forgot to mention this in my last post: Monte Diablo runs right into the bay trail. Back to the train station, I prefer the bike bridge, but I usually leave work too late to take that route and make my train.

Justin - check the route at www.sf2g.com - the bayway route has a turn sheet.

Basically you turn right onto Blomquist and follow that straight onto a frontage road through Menlo Park. Eventually you end up coming out at Marsh Road, where you can get on a bike path that takes you to Sun Microsystems. Cross at Willow onto another bike path to University.

Follow University into East Palo Alto then you need to cross EPA - the turn sheet on sf2g is as good as any. You end up on a bike path through the Palo Alto Golf Course, getting spit out onto Embarcadero then onto Bayshore. Cross San Antonio on Bayshore, left on Garcia, right on Shoreline, left on Pear, right on Inigo, left on La Avenida, then the Steven's Creek Trail.

Unfortunately the only tricky part is EPA which is also a bit dodgy, get the turnsheets from sf2g.com - but we are constantly re-analyzing our route through there.